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out a breath. “Hope she waits till this cold snap ends,” she said and hurried toward the hydrant in the corner, but Colt stepped past her.
    â€œI’ll get that,” he said, and grabbing a nearby pail, filled it to a few inches from the top before carrying it to the crate.
    Casie bent over a nearby fence to retrieve a slab of alfalfa, but as she did so, her exposed wrist scraped along the sharp end of a stray wire.
    She jerked back with a rasp of pain, and Colt was beside her in a second, water bucket abandoned.
    â€œWhat happened?” His brows were low, his tone concerned.
    â€œNothing.” She shook her head and hugged her arm against her overalls. “It’s no big deal.”
    â€œThen let me see it,” he insisted, and tugging her hand toward his chest, made a hissing noise as the wound was revealed.
    â€œIt’s fine,” she said, though it stung like the devil. Three inches long, it was little more than a thin pink stripe except toward the distal end where a single drop of blood bubbled against her pale flesh.
    â€œNothing!” He tugged off her right glove. It was worn through on the index finger. “Are you kidding me?” he asked, tone rife with drama.
    â€œNo, I’m not. It’s—” she began, but he interrupted her.
    â€œBuck Creger had an injury just like this in Laramie last fall. Lucky for him there was a medic on hand so they didn’t have to amputate,” he said and skimmed his thumb down her wrist.
    Feelings shimmied away from his touch, making her nerve endings twitter like over-stimulated songbirds. She searched wildly for something to say.
    â€œThat’s comforting,” was all she could come up with.
    â€œIs it?” he asked and raised his eyes to hers. It struck her hard, causing heat to rise in her cheeks and seem to begin a slow melt down the center of her being.
    â€œI meant . . .” She swallowed. “I meant . . . it’s comforting that he didn’t . . .” For one wild second she couldn’t remember what she was going to say. Hell, she could just barely recall they were standing in a sea of sheep instead of on a tropical beach somewhere, waves lapping at their ankles. “That he didn’t lose his hand.”
    â€œOh.” He grinned a little, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. “Yeah, but they had to take drastic measures.”
    She made a face at him. Colt Dickenson had been a wild-eyed risk taker long before he had become a nationally ranked bronc rider. Rarely had a year passed that he hadn’t broken, lacerated, or bruised something near and dear to his heart. Three months ago, after his latest return from the rodeo circuit, there had been a new scar bisecting his right brow. She raised her gaze breathlessly to that area.
    â€œI . . .” she began, but when she glanced up, the words froze on her lips. His eyes were dark, glowing with warmth and promise and a thousand emotions she dared not consider. “I can . . .”
    â€œCan what?” he asked and raised his attention from her lips to her eyes.
    She swallowed hard. “Listen, Colt . . . I just . . .” She tried to hold his gaze, but it was too steady, too bold, too appealing. And she couldn’t afford to be appealed to. “You don’t have to be so nice to me.”
    â€œI know.” He grinned. His smile was little more than a slash of diabolical white beneath the rim of his dark Stetson. Rain, sleet, or arctic blast, he looked comfortable in a felt hat and canvas jacket while Casie needed what amounted to an insulated onesie and mukluks to keep the cold from seeping into her bones like permafrost. “It’s not as if someone’s holding a pistol to my head,” he said and raised her wrist to his lips.
    She tried to pull away. “I don’t—” she began, but in that instant his lips touched her flesh.
    Dynamite ignited someone near her solar plexus,